Recent Comments

Social anxiety and lyme disease

Instinctive protection for a weakened body

​It's all too common of a symptom. Your body is in an ailing state and in order to protect itself from further threats or damage, it generates fear. Fear is a self generating deterrent for possible future encounters that may pose a threat to our survival. After all, survival is our fundamental purpose in life. In our modern world of non-genetically spawned purposes and unnecessary materialistic possessions, it has become all but too easy to forget our main priority is to sustain existence for as long as possible. This purpose is just as much alive today as it was 200,000 years ago, but the only difference is that recently we've fooled ourselves into thinking it is not.

The anxiety exists as abstract and non abstract. There are parts of the anxiety that exist only in our heads and other parts that exist outside of them. The problem arises when we can't distinguish the proper originating location of these parts and that alone can generate more anxiety and fear.

The non abstract part or the part that doesn't exist in your head is being judged by others. There is no doubt that there are people judging you, as this is the part of anxiety that is and will forever be beyond your control. Judging is the first technique we humans use in determining whether someone or something is a threat to our survival. After we've analyzed their behavior, they are then placed in a category of threat or non-threat.

Being chronically ill puts the body and mind on high alert and tends to place more people into the threat category than if we were not chronically ill. The reason for this could simply be our inability to judge properly in the first place which is directly caused by our chronic condition. Lyme Disease can cause massive brain fog and cognitive impairment which inevitably distorts judgement at the highest levels. So since the mind and body take no chances when the ability to properly distinguish threats from non-threat is compromised, to be safe, it has a natural tendency to label even non-threats as threats.

Judgement happens on a constant basis whether you're in someone's plain sight or when they recall you at a later time from their memory. Being in someone's plain sight can definitely be the most intimidating as there is the chance for conflict. As unlikely as a conflict could occur, being that we humans are somewhat civilized, the reason we judge in the first place is to distinguish possible threats from non-threats. By determining the threats, we tend to avoid conflict due to our weakened state. You must remember that you're judging someone just as much as they're judging you. It's forever a two way street. In fact, you'd never assume someone was judging you if you never judged them in the first place.

The abstract part of anxiety or the factor that exists only in your head is what you're assuming a person is actually thinking of you. This is the part that we have control over but many times we let our imaginations run wild. Though our assumptions of what others may be thinking of us may in fact be right, they could just as well be wrong. The limit of our capabilities is that we can never truly verify what it is in our heads we believe a person to judge us as and the same works vice versa. Even if you were to go so far as to even ask the person what they think about you, as unreal of a notion as this is, that person may not tell you the exact truth for two reason. The first reason is that the person may not want to be honest with you in the first place. The second is that words can never truly reflects the thoughts we generate even if the person decides to be as honest as they're capable of.

We must understand that because our bodies are in such a weakened and frail state, instincts are going to take over. This phenomenon is surely scary to some and will undoubtedly open the door to more questions. The best thing we can do is trust our bodies in that they know what is in the best interest for our survival and safety. Our bodies have had plenty more practice than our minds have had. Our bodies have been attempting to secure survival since life first began millions of years ago. Our minds have only begun to understand this process only since the day we were born.

It is completely unnecessary and inappropriate for our thoughts to impose for even a split second on our body's genetic obligation.